“As law, the Tokyo trial had grand ambitions to establish international principles for a safer postwar world – a revived international law that outlawed aggression and atrocity. It sought to reestablish the battered authority of the old international laws of armed combat, such as the illegality of killing innocent civilians or abusing prisoners of war. It insisted that powerful persons had to face individual judgement for war crimes committed under their commands, rather than claiming immunity as generals and cabinet ministers. And like Nuremberg, it made a revolutionary attempt to enshrine aggressive war as the cardinal international crime, the one war crime that led to all the others.”

astonishing. An instant classic, & the most authoritative & researched composition on the subject to date. Considering the current state of things – & the remarkable parallels & similarities we are undergoing – it couldn’t arrive sooner.

Stupendously researched & meticulously archived with astounding quotes galore manifesting thick-and-fast.

“Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance.” -Justice Robert Jackson

here we have a courtroom omnibus on the ever necessary occurrence of an offending regime on trial, & special prosecutions with enhanced powers holding some of the worst actors to account.

The most strident modern equivalence – the orgiastic offending of the genocidal crime state of Israel – are ever present.

Anyone – and that’s a lot of us – wanting a profusion of detailed legal ammo, criminal correlation, & what can transpire when “political will” is present in international intention – will be richly rewarded from studying this epic book.

Although the end results of the Tokyo Trial are very badly diminished, & wracked with loss & injustice (for a whole myriad of hyper complicated & intra-related reasons), it remains a seismic & crucial event that requires considerable scrutiny & research.

Furthermore, not in any way to insult, disrespect or trivialise the phenomenon, but the sheer “human drama” of it all, which is incredibly recounted & documented in this work, is completely extraordinary.

“We have a stern duty to teach the German people the hard lesson that they must change their ways before they can be received back into the family of peaceful, civilised nations.”- Henry Truman

“[O]nly when militarism has been eliminated from Japanese life and institutions will Japan be admitted to the family of nations.” – Truman/MacArthur

“MacArthur was secretly authorized to go after a host of prime ministers, generals, admirals, cabinet ministers, diplomats, and propagandists.”

within the hulking 692-pages are the gallant attempts & fundamental legal criteria that demand referencing:

A: “planning and waging of aggression, or participating in a conspiracy to do so.”

B: Violations of the laws and customs of war –

“harming prisoners of war, murdering or abusing civilians, and destroying cities in ways not justified by military necessity.”

C: crimes against humanity –

“murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, or other inhuman acts against civilians, even before the war began.”

Israel would never survive such a trial … so better to keep relying on all that Maxwell & Epstein kompromat to ensure no legal action or summons is ever issued by the craven & compromised states/powers that could effectuate such a mandatory motion.

“These were a prosecutor’s dream: swift trials, loose evidentiary rules, no appeals to anyone but the U.S. Military.”

“It would take some of the joy out of war if some of the men that started one, instead of a halo around the head, got a rope around the neck.” – James Brynes, U.S. Secretary of state

“Even Joseph Stalin was was jolted; “War is barbaric, but using the A-bomb is a superbarbarity.”

“A rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” Harry Truman

a sweeping masterpiece, with added urgency.

Fantastic photographic selections also.

“it would be a capital political error to indict him as a war crimina [Hirohito]l. We desire to limit commitment in manpower and other resources by using Imperial Throne as an instrument for the control of the Japanese people.” – British diplomat

Gary J. Bass, Picador, 2024, 692-pages.